Sunday Mass: February 27, 2022 - Live from Connelly Chapel at DeSales University

[Music] [Applause] [Music] foreign good morning and welcome to our 10 30 mass here in conley chapel the sacred heart i'm father dan lane landon chaplain to the university and part of the center for faith and justice and we are so happy that you are here to celebrate with us today i would imagine many of us have been in prayer continuously for the people of ukraine and all affected by this ongoing war and we'll be praying with them continually today and throughout this week we do have a lot of great things still happening on campus and this week before spring break so tomorrow night for anybody would like we will be offering a mardi gras party at 7 p.m in dorothy day fondue milkshakes and games at 7 p.m and dorothy day i'm sorry the duck conference rooms on tuesday there will be evenings they'll be at eucharistic adoration at 7 30 here in conley chapel with prayer for ukraine we will be lighting candles and spending an hour in prayer with our lord 7 30 on tuesday wednesday of course is ash wednesday so we have several opportunities to receive ashes at 7 45 here in conley chapel with ashes in prayer 10 o'clock ashes in prayer in the conley chapel at noon we have our noon mass with ashes we'll have a 3 pm prayer service here in colley chapel with ashes and a 5 pm mass in dorothy day student union there is no mass on campus next sunday because of the beginning of spring break it should be available to be seen on the web at 10 30 though up next sunday there will be the first mass back on campus will be at 6 00 pm march 13th so the first in-person mass after spring break will be at 6 pm here in conley chapel and you'll notice that the back of the chapel we have our rice bowls which is an annual tradition of the catholic church throughout the war united states especially to share whatever we have that gets sent in solidarity to many parts of the world that are in need and just a little fun fact the rice bowl tradition started right here in downtown diocese and please at the end of mass please take a donut as we will be in celebration for fat tuesday coming up our celebrant today is father jim greenfield and let us stand and begin our mass [Music] is [Music] [Applause] is [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] foreign [Music] is [Music] foreign [Music] friends let us continue our prayer in the name of the father and on the son of the holy spirit amen may the grace and peace of our present lord jesus christ the love of god and the communion of the holy spirit we gather here on this last sunday ordinary time as father dan reminded us to begin our celebration of plenty but this is a moment as we celebrate this mass today perhaps we're not in a festive mood and some of the connotations of that word celebration as god's people we gather here knowing that the world is ever worse we pray for the men and women and children of ukraine we pray for a change in heart for world leaders and most especially we believe that our prayers here today in central valley as they rise up to the lord are truly heard and so our prayers that we're going to use that the church puts forth are for reconciliation and for times of war and civil disturbance so let's ask the gift of spiritual clarity so that we can see ourselves the way god sees us i confess to you my brothers and sisters may almighty god have mercy on us forgive us our sins and bring us to everlasting life amen lord have mercy on the lord [Music] yes [Music] me [Music] oh [Music] lord jesus christ [Music] [Music] using is [Music] have mercy on us [Music] you are [Music] christ [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] let us pray oh god merciful and strong who crushed wars and cast down crowd be pleased to banish violence swiftly from our midst and to wipe away all tears so that we may all truly deserve to be called your children through our lord jesus christ your son who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the holy spirit forever a reading from the book of sirach when a sieve is shaken the husks appear so do one's faults when one speaks as the test of what the potter molds is in the furnace so in tribulation is the test of the just the fruit of a tree shows the care it has had so too does one speech disclose the bent of one's mind praise no one before he speaks for it is then that people are tested the word of the lord [Music] lord it is good to give thanks to you to give thanks to you lord it to is thanks to you it is good to give thanks to the lord to make music to your name almost high to proclaim your loving mercy in the morning and your truth in the watches of the [Music] [Music] the just will flourish like the palm tree and grow like speeder plenty planted in the house of the lord they will flourish in the courts of our god [Music] [Music] still bearing fruits when they are old full of steps still green to proclaim that the lord is upright in him my rock there is no wrong [Music] [Music] so a reading from the first letter of saint paul to the corinthians brothers and sisters when this which is corruptible clothes itself with incorruptibility and this which is mortal clothes itself with immortality then the word that is written shall come about death is swallowed up in victory where o death is your victory where o death is your sting the sting of death is sin and the power of sin is the law but thanks be to god who gives the victory through our lord jesus christ therefore my beloved brothers and sisters be firm steadfast and fully devoted to the work of the lord knowing that in the lord your labor is not in vain the word of the lord oh [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] sisters and brothers the lord be with you this is a reading from the holy gospel according to luke [Music] jesus told his disciples a parable can a blind person guide a blind person will not both fall into a pit no disciple is superior to the teacher but when fully trained every disciple will be like his teacher why do you notice the splinter in your brother's eye but do not perceive the wooden beam in your own how can you say to your brother brother let me remove that splinter in your eye when you do not even notice the wooden beam in your own eye you hypocrite remove the wooden beam from your eye first then you will see clearly to remove the splinter in your brother's eye a good tree does not bear rotten fruit nor does a rotten tree bear good fruit for every tree is known by its own fruit for people do not pick figs from thorn bushes and they gather grapes from brambles a good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks the gospel of the lord praise to you lord jesus christ a few weeks ago i was privileged to preach at the funeral of the father of a classmate of mine here from what was then allentown college of saint francis de sales and in one of the eulogies one of his grandchildren said this about the decedent he never said a nasty word about anyone in his whole life of course when i heard that i thought that's not going to be said about me at my funeral and i don't know about you but my tongue has slipped on occasion but what a wonderful tribute to say about someone and this man was in his 90s it reminds me the truth of our readings today that what we say has its roots in who we are what we say has its roots in who we are our readings connect speech and character sirock a teacher of wisdom wrote about two centuries before jesus and today we hear sirach reflecting on the way speech reveals character he compares shaking a sieve which retains the worthless husks while the grain passes through to the act of speaking which shows our faults as it offers our thoughts one can hear this as an invitation to talk less i don't know if anyone's seen the phenomenal musical hamilton but there's one line in one of the songs where aaron burr says to the young alexander hamilton talk less smile more now obviously that's not a great thing from that play because it reminds us of somehow politicians are vacuous and all they need to do is smile and win the day we want their words to ring true don't we siroc also says we can think of our speech as the fruit of our mind and what we speak is organically related to what we think speech is the harvest of our thoughts and that's why it's so important here at desales university that we take courses like english and history and philosophy and theology in addition to all of those other professional tracks that many of our students are in because by our words we manifest our minds and our hearts thus sirach cautions his students to praise no one before he speaks for it is then that people are tested jesus is developing a similar theme of connection between what goes on in our minds and how it bears fruit which is not always sweet in what we say and it's so important to note that the ancient understanding of where our thoughts are located is in our hearts in the bible anytime we hear the word heart it's the seat of intellect will and wisdom it's not the stuff of valentine's that we had a few weeks ago with these red fancy hearts in biblical literature the heart is the seat of everything the word heart if we were to use it in english would be translated will and mind francis desales in his introduction to devout life says this as the heart is so is the person as the heart is so is the person the heart then is the source of thought desires and deeds so the bottom line seems to be that we need to check out what we store in our heart what we hold on to in the space we live in reveals what we value many people tend to hang on to certain things because of their emotional value stirring them away whatever space is available whether it's a drawer a bureau a bulletin board in our dorm room a closet a room some people even rent space i see them all the time on route 78 and 309 people go places to store their things i remember my mom saved so many things at the time of her death i discovered cards and letters she had saved over the years and it was really hard getting rid of it we didn't get rid of all of it by the way because now it's hard for me because i want to keep some of it but far more important than those things are the things we store in our hearts and i was making a catalog of some of the things i think that are uncommon for all of us that we store in our hearts memories of events of words spoken of hurts sustained dreams of achieving success winning approval overcoming obstacles an affirming statement from a professor judgments rendered attitudes absorbed values accepted these are the things that are in our hearts and so jesus's final words in today's gospel emphasizes the crucial importance of what we put in our heart i quote jesus a good person out of the store of goodness in his heart produces good but an evil person out of a store of evil produces evil for from the fullness of the heart the mouth speaks and so in conclusion i'm going to go to the very beginning of this parable that jesus places before us he poses this question can a blind person guide a blind person will not both fall into the pit no disciple is superior to the teacher but when fully trained every disciple will be like his teacher so i think jesus is reminding us today that we all need guides and mentors in the spiritual life that we can't get through this all by ourselves we need other people to remind us of who we are so that we can be who we are and be that well and i was thinking of four types of guides that we all need in life we all need a cheerleader we need an harasser a prophet and a spiritual guy just a word on each we need people who are going to lie to us to make us feel good now that sounds kind of weird for me to say from a pulpit doesn't it but these are the cheerleaders like when we had a bad day or we bombed out on a test or perhaps we did something it wasn't up to our potential this is the person's going to say you are fabulous you're outstanding don't worry about it it's the type of person that's going to twist the truth enough to help our poor fragile sinking egos and we do need them is anyone here married do you agree with this thank you we also speaking of being married we need people who will harass us these are the kind of people that are helping us not to take ourselves too seriously and that's something that i notice with all of our students here i love the quality of student comes to desales university because by and large all of you just are remarkably comfortable in your own skin and that's a beautiful thing there's not a lot of artifice or pretension here desales university and i think that i speak for many of my colleagues on the faculty and staff in saying that but there are times when we take ourselves too seriously so we need people to kind of just kind of give us a little shove to say really maybe we sent some stupid tweet or some instagram post that was stupid the harass is going to say did you really mean to do that [Music] we need people that are going to get us back on track we also need profits we need profits i see dr kelosi out here dr kelosi was a prophet for the faculty before he became a professor emeritus as president one of my first meetings he raised his hand and he said something that was very very prophetic and i didn't like it made me feel uncomfortable i forget what it was but i remember when i see him joe's the type of person that's going to say what needs to be said even if it's unpopular we need prophets in our lives that's why the prophets in the scriptures were irratible you don't want to be around them but we need them to remind us of what's important we need prophets right now like pope francis to leave his place in the vatican and walk by himself to the embassy to speak with the russian ambassador to say why are you doing this to be a man of peace and everyone said it has never been done in the history of the papacy for a pope to go to an embassy like that a prophetic gesture and finally we need spiritual guides we need people to help us be our best selves and that could be ordinary or extraordinary i know for me in my life as an oblate sometimes i meet with a spiritual director one year i met with a jesuit who lived at saint joe's university for four years i had an oblate spiritual director sometimes i've been without that formal person but i'm still reading spiritual books and obviously i need to do that stuff because when i don't i'm committing malpractice as a priest i'm supposed to be somewhat intelligent about scripture supposed to be able to take scripture and break it open but you can only do that when you sit still and do what you say you're going to do so for those of you here practicing to be physical therapists you got to do it right if you're the division head of one of our schools here at desales university you got to see the whole picture not just what one little department thinks this is the stuff of spiritual guides most importantly we say the most important thing in life is to gain eternal life and would any of us here fit anything stupid or immediate here below to forfeit our eternal life spiritual guys help us and they don't just have to be the mother teresa type their ordinary everyday spiritual guides all around us when we sit in the duck and share a cup of coffee over lunch with someone and we're going to have an enlivening conversation that can be spiritual direction because what is spiritual is also most human and what is most human is most spiritual so keep that in mind that we need god we need cheerleaders harassers prophets and spiritual guides i close with a quote from the play our town by thornton weidler that's here at the buddha theatre if anyone's interested and i'm not going to go through the whole thing but i'm going to share this one line that was so touching it's at the end when young emily she's looking at her life from beyond the grave and she says this oh earth you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you do any human beings ever realize life while they live it every every minute may god be praised i believe in one lord [Music] [Music] [Music] by the holy spirit [Music] [Music] we place our prayers in need and position before our loving god for the church the people of god to always seek to promote the basic rights of dignity and respect as the foundation for a sure and lasting peace in one world we pray to the lord for an end to the war in ukraine for the protection of human life of all impacted by this war and for the prevention of trauma especially among children we pray to the lord for all elected officials and those entrusted with the duty to watch over the freedom of peoples we pray to the lord for all who are in need of god's healing touch may they find welcome the living body of christ especially steve sagowitz and lou walker we pray to the lord for the r especially andrew black and ann limpa to be brought into peace of god's kingdom we pray to the lord gracious and loving god hear these prayers we place continue to make us peacemakers and harbingers of goodwill for others so that what we do here emanates to the world and we've asked this through christ our lord amen [Music] so [Music] oh [Music] me [Music] [Music] me [Music] me [Music] is [Music] is [Music] oh [Music] friends pray that my sacrifice will be acceptable to god almighty god may the lord accept the sacrifice of your hands for the praise and lord of his name be mindful lord that your son who himself is peace has destroyed our hatreds by his blood look at mercy on our evil deeds and grant that to those whom we love this sacrifice may restore peace and tranquility through christ our lord amen the lord be with you and with your spirit lift up your hearts lord let us give thanks to the lord our god it is right in christ it is truly righteous that we should give you thanks and praise god for all you do in the world of the lord jesus christ from throw the human race divided by dissension and discord yet we know that by testing us you change our hearts to prepare men for reconciliation even more by your spirit you move human hearts that enemies may speak to each other again adversaries join hands and people seek to be together by the working of your power it comes about the lord that hatred is overcome by love revenge gives way to forgiveness and discord is changed to mutual respect therefore as we give you ceaseless thanks to the choirs of heaven we cry out to your majesty on earth [Music] ah [Music] is [Music] you therefore almighty father we bless you jesus christ your son comes in your name he himself is the word that brings salvation the hands of extended sinners the way by which your peace is offered to us when we ourselves have turned away from you on account of our sins you brought us back to be reconciled with the lord so that converted at last to you we might love one another through your son whom for our sake you handed over to death and now celebrating reconciliation christ has brought us we entreat you sanctify these gifts by the outpouring of your spirit that they may become the body and blood of your son whose command we fulfill when we celebrate these mysteries from when about to give his life to set us free as he refined its supper he himself took bread into his hands and giving you thanks he said the blessing broke the room and gave it to his disciples saying take this all of you and me of it for this is my body which will be given up for you in a similar way on that same evening he took the chalice of blessing in his hands confessing your mercy and gave you chalice of his disciples saying take this all of you and drink from it for this is the chalice of my love the blood of the new and eternal covenant which will be poured out for you and for man for the forgiveness of sins do this the mystery of faith [Music] celebrating therefore the memorial of the death and resurrection of your son who left us this pledge of islam we offer you what you have bestowed on us the sacrifice of perfect reconciliation father we humbly beseech you to accept us also together with your son and in this saving thank you graciously to endow us with his very spirit who takes away everything that estranges us from one another may he make your church a sign of unity and an instrument of your peace among all people and may he keep us in communion with francis our pope alfred our bishop all the bishops and your entire people just as you have gathered us now at the table of your son so also bring us together with the glorious virgin mary mother of god with your blessed apostles and all the saints with our brothers and sisters and those of every grace and language who have died in your friendship bring us to share with them the unending banquet of unity in a new heaven and in where the fullness of your peace will shine forth in christ [Music] holy jesus is yours forever [Music] oh [Music] at the savior's command and formed by divine teaching we dare to say our father lord of heaven hallowed be my name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us deliver us lord we pray from every evil graciously ground peace in our days that by death of humors we may be always free from sin and safe from all distress as we await the blessed hope and the coming of our savior jesus the glory of christ now and forever lord jesus christ who said to your apostles peace i leave you my peace i give you look not on our sins but on the faith of your church and graciously grant her peace and amen friends the peace of the lord [Music] oh [Music] mercy [Music] oh [Music] behold the lamb of god behold him who takes away the sins of the world blessed are those called to the supper of the lord [Music] so [Music] so [Music] so oh [Music] [Music] oh [Music] [Music] god [Music] is [Music] [Music] [Music] that [Music] praise [Music] is [Music] is [Music] jesus christ [Music] [Music] live [Music] i is [Music] [Music] we may successfully overcome the fury of war and resolutely the law of love and justice in christ our own amen just like to uh remind us of uh announced at the beginning of our mass that it's ash wednesday so on your quote your missile there or your worship aid if you have the time so please keep that in mind i want to apologize i run that battery so zach was nice to bring them up and then i even and also this week we have a panel on ukraine dr andrew messi he's the chair of our politics department we'll join with dr golina in our english department uh she herself is ukrainian and a ukrainian priest who also is an army chaplain so the three of ukraine them afternoon at 4 30 so look for that in the sales daily it's a good opportunity for all of us to gather to learn and bring our questions and just try to understand what's happening in the world the most inappropriate to pray for peace and while we're praying uh let's pray for women's basketball during the mac championship this afternoon one o'clock and i know that our women's lacrosse starts at 12 noon over on the fields [Music] the lord be with you and with your spirit and may the blessings of almighty god father son and holy spirit peace [Music] foreign [Music] me [Music] me [Music] me [Music] foreign so [Laughter] you

Channel: DeSales University Campus Ministry

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Length: 57min 42sec (3462 seconds)

Published: Mon Feb 28 2022